This article is going to talk about the story of how I discovered tarot cards.
I was gifted the cards by a friend who was cleaning out his apartment of old junk. The cards were in a handkerchief. I was 25 at the time, and I was in the middle of my music education.
I wasn’t sure to make of the offer. My friend convinced me by saying “you know you can only use tarot if someone gives you the cards right?” It was an easy sell for me. I took the cards.
Now, to be clear. You do not have to be given a tarot deck to begin your tarot reading journey. That was just a social sleight of hand my friend used to convince me to take the cards. It worked, but it isn’t true. You can acquire your deck whenever and wherever you want. All you need is the desire. Ok, let’s get back to the story.
The cards were mysterious and old. They were ragged on the edges. They had seen action. The copyright said 1975 by Marty Yeager. This was the Yeager Tarot of Meditation deck that was re-released in 1982 by U.S. Games. I didn’t realize until a few years ago how valuable the deck was. It seems to be out of print everywhere. When you do find the deck it commands a lot of money.
I had the Yeager deck for a while, it sat on my bookshelf. I used it here and there. I got my first tarot book by Corrine Kenner. It was Tarot for Writers. It was great because it had a complete account of what the cards meant and how to use them. But there was a disadvantage because the cards I had were different than what was in the book.
I didn’t realize I had cards that reflected sacred geometry and the kabbalah. I learned later on that Yeager’s cards were more like to Crowley’s Thoth deck than the recreated Rider-Waite-Smith images that were featured in Kenner’s book.
In Yeager’s deck, the minor arcana pip cards were symbols of the suite arranged in some pattern. At the time I had no idea what it meant. Having taken time to study tarot I know now that the cards were tapping into something much deeper, sacred geometry.
Over time I was fortunate to experience other decks like the Wild Unknown, oracle decks, Crowley’s Thoth deck, and the Golden Dawn Magical Tarot. Each deck has similarities and their distinct flavor to make them unique.
Looking back I think how fortunate I was to have Yeager’s deck be my first one.